Another Reason for Class Basketball

Agreed. That 1996 team was phenominal

As I understand it, class basketball, or any sport, is supposed to level the playing field allowing smaller schools the chance to go against each other in order to let everyone have a chance. What I can't seem to grasp is how the level of competition, and the attendances at games, has gone down since the class system has been initiated. Do you remember on the middle King Kong movie when Geoff Bridges describes what will happen now that Kong is gone. He says the locals will probably end up drunk and un-motivated. Single class basketball was always the Kong for us at Bloomfield, and our success was measured by how well we did against these larger schools. I remember, and you can still see, teams on the walls at Bloomfield who made it a long way in the tournaments. These achievements meant more, because they were going against Kong. If one of our area schools does win a State Title it will still mean a lot, but it will come with an asterisk in the form of 2A or 1A.

I'm fairly certain that the teams who were in the same sectional as LN under the single-class format were very similar in size and would have been able to hang with them. I'll actually be surprised if they win their sectional this year seeing as how they will have to beat at least Cathedral or North Central (Indianapolis) in the championship.

Snakeplisken, I think that the drop in attendance at high school games has more to do with people and kids having more at their disposal in terms of entertainment on a Friday or Saturday night. I agree with you Kong statement, though, because one of the fun things I remember about growing up was watching Bloomfield beat the bigger schools they always played. The tournament run of 93-94 with Shane Miller's team is one of my fondest memories when it comes to Bloomfield basketball.

You see, my point exactly. Whether it's 1971, 1988, 1996, or whoever, these teams all seem to get left out of any discussion on the great SHS baseball teams. Just because they ran into big school powerhouses in the tournament and didn't make it to the state finals. People only seem to want to talk about the recent teams, again, not taking anything away from those teams, but they didn't have to go through the big schools come tournament time.

Why should Shakamak teams compare with each other at any year or any sport..... A true Shakamak fan would realize all Shakamak teams are full of talent and capable of winning. Go Lakers....

Oldoak, it's been done before. I'm just saying why not bring all the teams into consideration. Not just the recent ones. Class sports has brought about a better chance of winning, but at the same time it somewhat eliminates discussion of past teams accomplishments.

Dude, I'm glad you included "at the time they played...", because you wouldn't want to see the '71 team play a series of anything right now, except maybe Scrabble.

I would like to see a bunch of unmotivated drunken locals play baseball against King Kong though.

I think Mitch has bigger ears and someone told me that he can actually play golf. Oh, not that Joe can't play too. Gee, what was I thinking?

Stewie, don't accuse Rivet of recruiting. Shakamak has done more recruiting in recent years than Rivet ever will. Parents send there kids to schools like Lafayette Central Catholic and Rivet because they are the top performing schools academically in their area.

A true recruiting Catholic school is Evansville Mater Dei. Watch them move up and down a class in both football and basketball. After they get moved down a class. They go out and recruit too many for the next realignment. They have probably changed classes more than any other school in the state.

Schools in this area have always pulled players from other school districts. Joey Hart lived in Bloomfield's district, but went to Union where his father taught. Shakmak's Marc Allen (younger brother to Michael) lived in Terre Haute South's district, but went to Shakamak where his parents were both teachers. Didn't Union's JT and Clark Golish live in North Central's district?

If a couple of AAU parents decide to send their kids to the same school, is that recruiting? If so, Rivet is the biggest culprit in girls basketball! The boys that went to Shakamak all had ties to Shakamak. It isn't as if they had no reason. One of the boys probably went for baseball more so than basketball anyway.

In the Golish boy's case they lived in the school corporation's area. When they got out of elementary I believe they had a choice between NC and Dugger. They might have chose Dugger because of Basketball but no rules were broken or bent. And I'm not sure if Joey came to Dugger his hole 13 years of schooling but I don't believe he came at such an age to play basketball only. What I mean there is if he came in 4th grade how was he or his parent's to know if the other 4th graders were going to be really good ball players. Now if he came as a freshman that might be a little different. But I don't think that was the case. Same with the Chambers boy. He lived on County line road and had a choice to go to Dugger or Linton. He went to Dugger his whole life so wasn't for just sports. Now there have been some kids go to other schools for sports but I believe more have left other schools for Football reasons than basketball.. :)

I've lost my running count of WRV players lost since their community leagues inception in the early 90's. At one one point it was reaching 30, but that was nearly a decade ago. I'd say it is well into 30+ students now. Don't worry they have 10-15 boys playing basketball(barely enough for a JV team).

They have some kids coming through the ranks that want desperately to continue playing football after JH. Wonder how many of those will transfer?

Didn't Chambers go to Linton his first year or two...I can't believe they would stoop so low as to recruit a 1st grader :)

Some one said that if you went to Shakamak it would have to be for athletic reasons,incredible. I know two people who went to Shakamak, were good athletes,major league material actually,and well above the bar in academics. That post is so offensive it is difficult to believe it made the cut. Do you really know where A. Einstein went to grammar school?

Joe does have a sense for talent, check the record,it is transparent, available and excellent.

Joe was injured playing Ice Hockey when he was young and that injury has caused a little hitch in Joe,s golf swing, and he ate a bad pizza and has never recovered from that ailment also, or he would be playing par golf on a regular basis. But when you eat that many pizzas, well many things can happen to you.

Recruiting is an ugly business, IU comes to mind and the coach they bought from OK. In college it is ugly, when you get to high school it is uglier, when it goes to grade school, you just must look away. And it is difficult to see how this helps the kids, it is obvious how it burdens them in the long run.

Hitting below the belt; there is not a name that comes to mind that shows that a kid did not play for his Father if the opportunity presented itself.

It is funny how stupid and ignorant people can sound when ever they dont know the facts and are jealous of somebody elses success.

GCC commented: "If a couple of AAU parents decide to send their kids to the same school, is that recruiting? If so, Rivet is the biggest culprit in girls basketball.

Stewie commented: You don't find it funny that Rivet has been TERRIBLE for years in athletics and now all of a sudden has solid teams year in and year out? If you don't think that their coaches have finally figured out how to sell their academic program in order to get athletes away from schools like Lincoln, you really are naive.

Let me tell you what really is happening at Rivet. I dont know if you can recruit girls girls in 3rd grade, but this is when all these girls started playing at the YMCA together. I remember watching them play and thinking Wow these girls have a lot of potential. Tim Young, the current Lady Patriots coach, must have seen the same thing,or just loves basketball. He conducted fundamental clinics for 3 or 4 years for these girls and also the girls from Lincoln who went to the Semi-state last year. You may want to read that last sentence again, I said FUNDAMENTALS clinic. They did not work on shooting, and plays--they worked on fundamentals. Dribbling, pivoting, rebounding, spacing, defense, passing--all that boring stuff. You look at any good team and they are built by having strong fundamentals. Since 3rd grade, they have lost a couple girls that could have made this team even better.

Tim, then took the girls on the IBA scene and had very good success. This success was not given to them, they had to work for it. Six to nine months out of the year spent on conditioning, free-throws etc. etc..

Do we recruit at Rivet? Yes we do. Do we recruit for athletes? No we dont. We recruit to survive!! We have a high school enrollment of around 110 or 120. Every year there seems to be a rumor of Rivet closing--we have to recruit to survive. If you look at the students that are in the system, they are normally from a family that has graduated from Rivet, Central Catholic or St.

Rose. Some of these girls had sisters on the teams that went 0-42. It was so nice to beat Barr-Reeve this year, because we all know they recruit--Can we all say Liz Horton.

As a graduate of Rivet, I felt I had to write this reply. These girls have worked to hard for to many years to have peoples ignorance and jealousy down play what they have worked so hard to accomplish.

Go Lady Patriots--win state!!!

I would like to congratulate the Dugger 5th grade boys basketball team for coming in second place in the WRV-Worthington tourney last Saturday. They won the first game 19-18 in overtime!!!! And no recruiting here, they played with a big mix of fourth graders and fifth graders............

I posed a question...sorry to offend you. So every girl on the Rivet team would have went there regardless of basketball? Just curious. I've heard South Knox, Lincoln, and even Rivet people say a few wouldn't have...but who knows. I'll still be rooting for the Patriots come this weekend regardless. Too bad it won't be a WRV/Rivet rematch.

Rivet tried to recruit Liz Horton. I've seen the proof.